KAD Anti Roll Bars

[lexie467]

I had the same problem at my App.K FIA mini. So we cut away 5mm/side, replaced the allens with philips and nuts and since than no problem what so ever. A nice way to save £ 100.
Tommy

[dazibee]

Just an aside... I'm only talking about road minis. Are ARBs needed? The books I have read say you are doing something wrong if you can't get a normal road mini to handle without resorting to the use of a rear ARB.
Daz

[lexie467]

Mr. Daz,

That was not the question.

[Vegard]

Just an aside... I'm only talking about road minis. Are ARBs needed? The books I have read say you are doing something wrong if you can't get a normal road mini to handle without resorting to the use of a rear ARB.
Daz

I can see no reason to fit an ARB to a road going Mini.

[littler]

With the way the roads are here in the UK you struggle to keep youre tiny mini wheels attached !!

let alone keep an anti roll bar in one piece

[monkeyjim]

I went over to KAD during the week and met Adrian over there . He happily swapped over the bars . The heritage bar is 3/4inch shorter .
Had a tour round kad too . Adrian is a friendly guy , highly recommend chatting to him if you want KAD parts.

[Vegard]

I went over to KAD during the week and met Adrian over there . He happily swapped over the bars . The heritage bar is 3/4inch shorter .
Had a tour round kad too . Adrian is a friendly guy , highly recommend chatting to him if you want KAD parts.

I agree. Top bloke!

[Pete]

The heritage bar is 3/4inch shorter

I think that's a fact very much worth KAD advertising ! I did wonder whether using countersunk bolts instead of their own big allen headed jobbies would work but 3/4" is quite a difference.

[KJW]

I use domed headed allen bolts just to provide a smooth contact with the tyre as the tyre can still rub even with the shorter bar.

[monkeyjim]

The heritage bar is 3/4inch shorter

I think that's a fact very much worth KAD advertising ! I did wonder whether using countersunk bolts instead of their own big allen headed jobbies would work but 3/4" is quite a difference.

Yes, I have mentioned he should put the fact there are 2 roll bars lengths available, onto the website

[AdrianKAD]

Hi everyone,

This is Adrian from KAD and I'd like to clear up a few of the issues and open the opportunity for any questions if I may?

The reason this problem has arisen is that a rear anti roll bar was never homologated, so in FIA spec you couldn't legally fit an anti roll bar (According to the guys at Swiftune!). I believe this is still actually illegal, but everyone now has one so it seems to now be an accepted modification. Secondly, for a while such modifications to road going Mk1 Mini's was pretty rare, and when such modification was done, usually wheel/tire and rear brakes/spacer combinations were used where we rarely saw this problem- on the odd occasion it did, we supplied one end of the roll bar unwelded as I see some of you have mentioned.

Now, we started to make the 'historic' anti roll bar a couple of years ago, originally for Glynn Swift, as the majority of the historic Mini field were using anti roll bars- he had tried some of the others on the market, but hadn't got the performance from it that he has anticipated so he wanted to try one of ours, but a bit shorter to clear the tyres. As a result the 'historic' anti roll bar was put into production.

The 'historic' anti roll bar has been marketed in the magazines, and was available on our website for a short while- but we had a server issue in October/November time and the website had to be rolled back to a previous back-up and this item must have disappeared along with a few others which have already been spotted and rectified. I will get this changed again, however, we are in the process of renewing the KAD website, so unfortunately it will be 2 or 3 weeks before this information gets changed- something which is out of our control unfortunately- we have to rely on an external source for our website work as we are only a small company and don't have enough resources to do this ourselves.

As for all those now with the incorrect bar- if the bar is 'as new' then we will happily take this back and swap it for a shortened bar. If you want to modify it yourself, the correct method is as previously mentioned- remove the welds, re locate the collar and replace the welds. We don't recommend cutting through the bar as this will weaken the bar significantly. Alternatively we can offer a replacement bar for £100- this may sound expensive, but if you could CNC machine the welded collars, source and cut high tensile steel bar, weld the collars to the bar, finish prep and nickel plate the bar for less than £100 then perhaps you should contact us and we will buy them from you instead of going to the hastle of making them ourselves. (Don't mean to be offensive with this comment, just highlighting the amount of work that goes into an anti roll bar bar).

Also I can offer KAD's opinion on the question of fitting ARBs to road Mini's- They certainly aren't essential and you can get a good set-up without them, plus oversteer is often avoided (unless you like to play on roundabouts) and generally body roll can be corrected through a good suspension set-up also. However, by fitting the anti roll bar you are effectively allowing both sides of the suspension to react to forces experienced by each side- as a result you can achieve the same suspension characteristics as a fully independent set-up with the shockers wound down a few notches giving a much more comfortable ride and more scope for finer tuning. At the end of the day it does come down to personal preferences for how you want your car to handle- the usual reaction to fitting a rear anti roll bar is to then fit a front anti roll bar (they work much better in pairs, especially on a road car where oversteer isn't always an advantage) so it is worth considering the extra cost implication if you end up going on to fit a front anti roll bar as well!

The 3/4" bar is an unofficial product... it is significantly more expensive to manufacture, however we are considering adding it to our product list as we have had a few enquiries about it just from word of mouth! The only 'problem' with the 3/4" bar is that it is pretty savage! It actively encourages the car to oversteer which can be a bit exciting if that's not what you were hoping to achieve, so the decision to fit something like this should not be taken lightly.

I hope I have addressed everything. Thanks to the forum moderators for letting me do this.

Please feel free to ask questions about this or any other product.

PS. Thanks for the kind words!

All the best!

[sandman]

Hi Adrian - and thank you for taking the time to share your story.

A few things;


First of all; fitting a Anti Roll Bar is completely within the FIA regulations.... there's even a paragraph in the rules that permits this.. The grey area however, is how the ARB is constructed.... As far as I know, no one supplies/markets an ARB that fully comply with the regs.. (that being a non-abjustable, solid bar, made of one piece of steel.)

Having said that; could you please verify the correct fitment of the droplinks on your bar.... the photo in the instructions show the droplinks pointing upwards away from the ground, but logic and space seem to suggest that they should be pointing down towards the ground... like this;



Many thanks,

[guru_1071]

ed

mine are the other way round, so that the drop links are far straighter.

yours looks a bit odd like that and looks a bit bent?

[AdrianKAD]

Hi Adrian - and thank you for taking the time to share your story.

A few things;


First of all; fitting a Anti Roll Bar is completely within the FIA regulations.... there's even a paragraph in the rules that permits this.. The grey area however, is how the ARB is constructed.... As far as I know, no one supplies/markets an ARB that fully comply with the regs.. (that being a non-abjustable, solid bar, made of one piece of steel.)

Having said that; could you please verify the correct fitment of the droplinks on your bar.... the photo in the instructions show the droplinks pointing upwards away from the ground, but logic and space seem to suggest that they should be pointing down towards the ground... like this;



Many thanks,

Ah, I see. We only go by what we are told by our customers (and Swiftune!)- we haven't yet been directly involved in historic racing, so our exposure to the rules at this level is relatively limited!

As for the direction of the drop links; it doesn't really matter. In the photo we have chosen up as it is on a coil over conversion, so the trumpet/ rubber cone isn't in the way and it provides a neater install by pointing it upwards. In the majority of cases the drop links are fitted pointing downwards, as per your photo, out of ease. However, as has already been stated, the important thing is to keep the drop links as straight as possible- this is to prevent any loading other than direct 'up' or 'down' forces from being put into the bar. Furthermore, the drop links need to be appropriately adjusted to prevent any pre-load in the bar- that can cause very noticeable handling issues on a racing car and uneven tyre wear on a road car.


I hope this answers your questions?

[sandman]

Many thanks! That does indeed help / ease my mind.

For the record, the ...umm, ehh, crap(!) you see in the photo above is not mine... 'just a photo I found in a google search...

Personally I use a MiniSpares bar and I'm fairly happy with that... I've noticed (when installing on other cars) that your bar is a abit thinner... I would imagine that translate to yours being a bit softer ?

[Pete]

I've noticed (when installing on other cars) that your bar is a abit thinner... I would imagine that translate to yours being a bit softer ?

..but a whole lot thicker than period jobbies like Janspeed's which was alot thinner and lighter.

So Adrian can customers (ahem..) send their mistakenly purchased bars back if they've already been fitted like mine ? (now removed obviously) .

[monkeyjim]

Brilliant , thanks Adrian .

[AdrianKAD]

Many thanks! That does indeed help / ease my mind.

For the record, the ...umm, ehh, crap(!) you see in the photo above is not mine... 'just a photo I found in a google search...

Personally I use a MiniSpares bar and I'm fairly happy with that... I've noticed (when installing on other cars) that your bar is a abit thinner... I would imagine that translate to yours being a bit softer ?

Ours are 5/8" whereas MiniSpares is 3/4"... however ours is a high tensile steel and MiniSpares is made from a plain carbon steel. Because of this they are roughly equivalent in resistance to loading, with the KAD bar being perhaps a little softer, but you can twist (or bend) our bar further before it is plastically deformed (permanently damaged).

The difference in material can be seen if you fit a 3/4" KAD bar- this is extremely rigid. It is no comparison to the MiniSpares bar.

[AdrianKAD]

..but a whole lot thicker than period jobbies like Janspeed's which was alot thinner and lighter.

So Adrian can customers (ahem..) send their mistakenly purchased bars back if they've already been fitted like mine ? (now removed obviously) .

Yes you can. There will be a handling charge to cover replating if we can't sell it 'as new' but otherwise we are happy to exchange them for the shorter bar!

[Pete]

So Adrian can customers (ahem..) send their mistakenly purchased bars back if they've already been fitted like mine ? (now removed obviously) .

Yes you can. There will be a handling charge to cover replating if we can't sell it 'as new' but otherwise we are happy to exchange them for the shorter bar!

Thanks for that, on it's way !